Homemade Sourdough Bagels

When I first started making sourdough breads, I bought Emilie Raffa’s book and I read her blog. If you are serious about sourdough, which a lot of people were in 2020, I recommend looking her up. She is a wealth of knowledge on the subject!

The first thing to do is to make sure your starter is well fed and active. Before making these homemade sourdough bagels, I will feed my starter twice to ensure that the starter is active enough.

These bagels will take at least 12 hours to make, so it is a bit of a time commitment. There’s no rushing it, just like with any other yeast or wild yeast risen bread, you need to give it time. The dough can be prepared at night, let it rise overnight, and bake it in the morning. If you wanted to make them really sourdough flavored, you could make the dough in the morning and let it sit all day. Shape the bagels and put them on a baking sheet in the refrigerator overnight. When you wake up in the morning you can boil and bake them and enjoy them for breakfast. They are so good that way!

Let’s get started. First, you will add the starter, water, and sugar to a bowl. I suggest the bowl to a stand mixer. This dough is very heavy and dense, so if can be very difficult to mix by hand. It’s not impossible to mix it by hand, it’s just a lot of work. Make sure to mix that all together to combine all the ingredients. Next you’ll add the flours and salt to the bowl. I used a combination of whole wheat and bread flour, but you could use all bread flour if you prefer or if you don’t have whole wheat flour on hand. The dough should look like the picture below.

Cover that with a damp towel for one hour. When that one hour is done, take the top section of the dough and fold it over into the middle of the dough then rotate the bowl slightly. Continue to do that for about 20 seconds until you have rotated the bowl the entire way. The dough should look smooth and round. This is really the only kneading that we will do of this dough. Cover the dough and let it sit at room temperature for 8-10 hours, depending on how cold your house is. If it’s warmer, you won’t need more than 8 hours, but if it’s cold, you might need 10-11 hours until the dough doubles in size. Usually, you will let this rest overnight so you can bake them in the morning.

When you wake up the next morning, place the dough onto a lightly floured counter and dimple the dough gently to make the dough into a square on your counter.

Let that sit on the counter for 10 minutes. This is called the “Bench Rest”. After ten minutes, cut the dough with a large knife or a bench scraper into 8 pieces (10 pieces if you want smaller bagels).

Now it is time to take those pieces of dough and turn them into balls. I find it easiest to take the corners of the triangle and fold them under the dough, meeting in the middle. Continue to fold the dough into itself to make a ball. Do that for all the pieces and then cover it with a damp towel and let that rest for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes, poke a hole through the center of the dough ball and pull the dough apart gently to create a hole in the center. Do that for all the bagels and place it them back on the baking sheet. The dough may shrink back on itself slightly but that is normal. Don’t stress about it at all. Cover that once again with the damp towel and now let’s get ready to boil the bagels.

While the bagels rest, get a large pot and fill it with water. Add 2 Tablespoons of honey to the water. This gives the bagels a slight sweetness and aids in browning the bagels in the oven. Bring the water to a gentle boil and add 2-3 bagels at a time, depending on the size of your pot. Boil the bagels for 1 minute on each side, then flip all the bagels and boil for another minute on the other side. When they are done boiling, carefully dip them into the topping of your choice. You could use sesame seeds or everything bagel seasoning.

Once all the bagels have been boiled, bake at 425 degrees for 30-35 minutes depending on your oven. Serve immediately. Leftover bagels can be sliced and frozen in a ziploc bag. You can take out a half or a whole bagel and toast them as you need them.

Make sure to check out my other breakfast recipes like my Apple Streusel Sourdough Muffins here or my Cranberry Orange Sourdough Muffins here.

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